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Connie Zweig: “Meeting One of the World’s Leading ...

As a new generation joins the search for understanding and meaning in our ambiguous and uncertain world, there’s a growing resurgence of interest in the Shadow—Carl Jung’s famous term for the aspects of ourselves that hide in our unconscious yet often drive behaviors we’d rather not repeat. In this podcast, Tami Simon speaks with acclaimed Jungian therapist and author Dr. Connie Zweig about her life’s mission to help us grow in self-awareness and move toward personal and collective healing by learning how to work with the Shadow. 

This aha-moment-filled conversation explores: meeting the Shadow on the spiritual path; ego formation during childhood; the concept of repression and the problem with the closet metaphor; why the Shadow hides—and when it erupts; “romancing the Shadow”; three cues to explore with respect to compulsive behaviors; “Shadow characters” and the practice of personifying aspects of the Shadow; the intergenerational aspect; engaging Shadow work at midlife; the superego; projection in relationships; sharing our secrets; money, sex, and power; shifting from a persona marriage to a Shadow marriage; the Vedanta tradition and the teaching on leshavidya, “the remains of ignorance”; the moral development missing in many spiritually advanced practitioners; illusions, idealizations, and archetypal projections; why the first reaction to meeting the Shadow is denial; Shadow projection in the politics of our times; step one: self-examination; bridging inner work and outer work wisely; how to practice “holding the tension of opposites”; cultivating nonduality in your own psychology; the “third thing” and the transcendent function; and more.

Note: This episode originally aired on Sounds True One, where these special episodes of Insights at the Edge are available to watch live on video and with exclusive access to Q&As with our guests. Learn more at join.soundstrue.com.

A Guide to Restoration: November 2017

Welcome Dear Friend,

The Fall and Winter months are often noted for their long nights and cool temperatures.  It is also a time for hibernation, hunkering down with loved ones and contemplation.

Restoration is our guide for the month of November!  Restoration is defined as the act of restoring; renewal, revival, or reestablishment.  Just as dusk comes sooner these days, we also hope the light and warmth burn brightly.

November will be filled with weekly content on rest and renewal.  Please check out our content guide for dates!  We look forward to going on this adventure with you!

 

With love on the journey,

Your friends at Sounds True

Digitization – Friend or Foe?

We have an ongoing debate in our house about how digital our world is becoming and whether our increasing digitization is a benefit or a curse. You’ve also likely seen studies about how use of mobile devices is causing us to become disengaged from one-on-one interactions, how 66 percent of people suffer from nomophobia (fear of being without a cell phone), or how “face time” is now better known as an iPhone app than a tangible experience.

As a high school English literature teacher, my husband is very much in the camp of those who are concerned about the potential detriments of digitization. It’s often hard enough to get students to put down their cell phones during one class, much less to get them to read an entire book. And, these trends don’t just start in high school—there are three and four year olds out there who could teach me a few things about iPhones and iPads! While there is no wrong or right answer, this trend has caused many to question the impact that this world of instant gratification and constant connectedness will have on the attention spans of future generations.

As a member of the publishing industry—and a company that is currently forging its way into the digital frontier by way of ebooks, apps, and downloadable everything—and a wife who always loves a good debate, I can’t help but think of all of the benefits that digitization has afforded us. I’m not saying that I disagree with the negative aspects of technology addiction, mind you, but I do believe that the digital world has afforded some profound and unparalleled opportunities that simply cannot be ignored.

For instance, many organizations, such as Now Clinic, allow people to connect with physicians and other medical professionals through the internet and outside of traditional business hours. The National Voices Project has similarly been exploring ways to provide mental health services via Skype to those who would otherwise be unable to access such resources. On a personal level, we’ve been able to remain in constant contact with family and friends all over the world—and we’ve seen their children grow between visits. We’ve partaken in talks and concerts and festivals from across the globe. We’ve accessed mindfulness practices and meditation bells directly from our iPhone apps. We’ve engaged with the teachings of spiritual teachers far and wide (try it for yourself and watch our free Refreshing Our Hearts live stream with Thich Nhat Hanh on 10/26).

Finally, as someone who is currently learning to speak Portuguese, technology has unlocked an invaluable world of tools and resources. I take lessons via Skype from a woman in Lisbon, have an iPhone app that acts as a deck of flashcards (complete with proper pronunciation!), I stream Portuguese radio throughout the day, and there are online communities like The Mixxer designed specifically for people who want to practice speaking new languages with one another via the internet—none of which would exist without the digital world.

The bottom line is that things are always evolving. In fact, change is one of the only constants in our lives, so why not embrace this new frontier with an open heart?  It comes to this: Can we be grateful for it as well as cautious of it?

So, what is your opinion? And, how does technology act as a benefit or a burden in your own life?

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Love would never ask you to hold it all together

There is a movement within you to hold it all together
To know how the journey will unfold
To know what the unknown will bring
But love was never designed to provide these things
Love is out of control and wants to show you everything
It wants your ordinariness, your humility, your broken-openness, so that it may finally reach you
Love would never ask you to hold it all together, for it wants only to take you apart, to show you what is waiting to be born within you

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RITUAL: Tracking Memory

Ritual: Tracking Memory Header Image

Consider your own experience of the acts and beings involved in memory and imagination—before science enters the picture. Consider what memory and imagination are like from your inner experience—not from the perspective or the studies of cognitive neuroscience or psychology. Science seeks truth and finds it, but the search here is for what supports that truth from within.

Say, for example, that a person weighs 170 pounds, measurable by a standard scale. She may find it difficult or even impossible to pick up 170 pounds of deadweight, if she is not a weightlifter. But how does it actually feel to be 170 pounds? It doesn’t feel at all like lifting deadweight. From the inside of her own experience of that 170 pounds, moving about in full health, she feels relatively light—maybe even light as a feather. This is the inner perspective of memory and imagination that we’re looking for. Our inner perspective does not cancel out the scientific perspective; they are complementary.

Memory is fascinating. I encourage you to get interested in the ways of your own memory. It has a unity, like our physical bodies or a landscape have a unity, and this unity can be touched or awakened at almost every part of point.

RITUAL—TRACKING MEMORY

This small, simple, but very potent daily mental cultivation ritual has its roots in the practices of ancient Greek philosophers and mystics, as well as in the mindfulness practices of Buddhist lineages. Variations of it are used in therapeutic contexts to support survivors of abuse, war, and trauma of all kinds.

This ritual serves two purposes. First, it heightens your awareness of your relationship to memory and to your experience of the present moments that are distinguishable from and underlie memory. Second, it attunes you to your everyday experiences.

TIME: About 15 minutes

MATERIALS:

PROCESS:

Breathe in a blessing on your physical body. Exhale in gratitude.

Set your timer for fifteen minutes and record the events of the previous day, without comment or judgment. Start anywhere—with what happened in the morning, afternoon, or evening. There is no need to try to pick an interesting experience or “problem area” to focus on. Making breakfast, walking down the street, working in the office—all the little, seemingly unremarkable things that happened during the previous day are what you’re recording here.

Simply describe what happened or what you were doing in as much detail as possible, including the sights, sounds, and any other details that seem relevant. Don’t get into the mental or emotional details of these happenings, such as whether you were worried while you were walking down the street, or whether you were thinking or feeling something profound. Resist the temptation to comment on what happened.

Take your time. When the timer rings, put your writing implement down, even if you are not finished.

Breathe in a blessing on your physical body once more and on your willingness to show up for this work.

Exhale in gratitude.

Move forward with your day.

This is an excerpt from Making Magic: Weaving Together the Everyday and the Extraordinary by Briana Henderson Saussy.

Download a free Making Magic Journal here.

Briana Saussy HeadshotMaking Magic BookBriana Saussy is a teacher, spiritual counselor, and founder of the Sacred Arts Academy, where she teaches tarot, ceremony, alchemy, and other sacred arts for everyday life. She lives in San Antonio, Texas. For more, visit brianasaussy.com.

Buy your copy of Making Magic at your favorite bookseller!

Sounds True | Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Indiebound

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ritual: Tracking Memory Pinterest

Sheryl Lisa Finn: “Connection Is More Powerful Than ...

With so many valid concerns stoking fear in today’s world, it’s no wonder that more and more of us are living in a state of chronic anxiety that seems irreversible. If you’re feeling at a loss about how to reclaim your peace of mind, body, and spirit, Sheryl Lisa Finn has a life-changing suggestion: Don’t underestimate the power of connection. In this podcast, Tami Simon speaks with the author of The Healing Anxiety Workbook to share actionable insights and approaches for dissolving anxiety on the spot and experiencing inner safety and serenity (without “bypassing” the realities of our times). 

Enjoy this conversation on: anxiety in a nutshell—sensing a lack of safety; reverse engineering anxiety; working with trauma at the root; when anxiety seeps back in; finding a source of goodness bigger than yourself; grief; building a foundation of connectivity that we can source into in challenging times; creativity and working with our hands; receiving support from the “wise self” within; Jungian psychology, archetypes, and dreamwork; fighting the spiritual fight in the face of systemic problems; anxiety’s hidden agenda—to serve our evolution; a practice to release the anxiety-producing stories we tell ourselves; the power of ritual and the importance of getting out of our rational minds; the practice of asking your ancestors to take your worry from you; anxiety in relationships, and how connection becomes a remedy; panic attacks; anxiety as a friend in disguise; and more.

Note: This episode originally aired on Sounds True One, where these special episodes of Insights at the Edge are available to watch live on video and with exclusive access to Q&As with our guests. Learn more at join.soundstrue.com.

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